The Doctor's Daughter
by Breathing Summer
Summary: She takes a shower in the morning, she picks up a book and reads, confident this is an illusion; so completely confident. It’s known as denial, and there’s a small, starved part of her, that she refuses to acknowledge, that tells her this everyday.
1. Prologue: The Answering Machine

**Disclaimer:** taken from the movie not the comic books and i don't own it

* * *

The phone rang unceasingly. But no one was there to pick it up. Again and again, it sounded, till finally the answering machine clicked.  
"Hello, you've reached the Octavius residence, please leave your name and number after the sound of the beep and we'll get back to you as soon as possible!" Came Rosie's low key but smiling voice.  
As promised, the tone came and, as if surprised that they were talking to a recording instead of a real person, there was silence for a moment. The message was left and then cut off.  
Later, a fireman saw the light blinking on the machine. A policewoman came up beside him.  
"Should we?" He asked, turning to the officer.  
She nodded, "It might be important. Its amazing that it survived the blast."  
The fireman pressed the blinking button with a gloved hand.  
"Hey mom? Dad? Anyone home? Well, it's Adie and I just wanted to call and say I'm so, so, _so_ sorry I couldn't make it for Daddy's big unveiling. The plane was delayed and I was unable to get a ride into the city. I hope everything went well!! Even though I already know it did, but I'm rambling now and I'll see you in about three hours. Love you bye!"  
The message clicked off and there was the low moaning dial tone for a few moments till it cut off.  
"Adie Octavius, the daughter I assume." The policewoman said coolly, "We'll send a car to the airport when her plane comes in." With that she walked away.  
The fireman watched the machine for a moment till it seemed to die.  
"Poor kid." He said, turning his back on it, facing the destruction with a masked face.


	2. Aftershock

The rain had left the pavement as black as the sky. Adie has never ridden in a police car before. She sits in the front, clutching her bag to her chest like it's a shield, something to deflect the truth and pretend that this isn't happening.  
When her grandfather died when she was nine years old, her father had broken it to her gently.  
"Papa went to heaven this afternoon." He spoke with a shaky voice.  
Now that she is older, she wonders why he had told her that. Her father was a stout atheist, which was not surprising considering he was a man of science, not of god. However, the thought of Heaven is much more comforting than rotting to dust underground, no new beginning only a desolate and forgotten end.  
All the policeman has told her is that there was an accident. Something went drastically wrong with her father's experiment and she would be more informed once they made it to the hospital. Adie is afraid to ask more, afraid the worst in her mind would be nothing compared to the damage in reality.  
"The explosion has rendered your father unconscious," The doctor says, Adie biting her thumbnail and stamping her feet as if she was cold.  
"There's more that you're not telling me, isn't there?" She asks, looking around the hospital hall, seeming to wait for the walls to collapse around her, "You're not telling me something,"  
The doctor takes a breath and leads her over to the window, night crashing down upon the city.  
"You know of your father's invention, these mechanical arms..."  
"Yes, yes, yes,"  
"Well, the blast melded the metal to his back. We're going to have to operate but it's very risky. You're going to have to decide whether or not to operate-"  
"B-but what do you mean by welded?" She's begging now for hope but asking all the wrong questions.  
"We did x-rays and realized that the needles on the machine are now permanently inserted in the spine, unless we operate, he may not live very long,"  
Adie's hands go to her throat and she feels like she's drowning.  
"And my mother? What has she to say about this decision?"  
"Miss. Octavius, your mother passed away."  
The world is suddenly spinning faster than ever and there is no stopping it.  
"Miss. Octavius?"  
Things fade for a moment, the placid blue of the doctor's smock disappears to grey for a second, things begin to blur.  
"Miss. Octavius? Breathe in,"  
The doctor's arm catches her before she falls backwards.  
"Nurse, bring this girl some water,"  
She's sitting down now and forcing her lungs to work. The world is coming back, the colors filling out in between the lines.  
"Thank you," She says, taking the plastic cup from the nurse, "Thank you, just give me a few minutes and I'll give you my decision."  
And she does so. She's her father's daughter; you don't stop till the job is done.  
  
She's disconnected the phone now. The newspaper men were calling at all hours, trying to get a quote from the daughter of the mad scientist who murdered a whole room of doctors and nurses with his mechanical arms. All she can do now is sit in her apartment and boil water for tea, over and over again. That's what she's been living on for the past week; tea and insomnia. She unplugged the TV as well. Every single damn Brokaw wannabe in the country has made her family a freak circus. So she gets up and boils another pot of tea and pretends she's dreaming. That's why she doesn't sleep, because she knows deep down all this is just a bad dream. She knows that soon she will wake up from the deepest sleep she's ever had and wonder how on earth her sub-conscious managed to conjure up such a nightmare. And then she will laugh.  
She takes a shower in the morning, she picks up a book and reads, confident this is an illusion; so completely confident. It's known as denial, and there's a small, starved part of her that she refuses to acknowledge that tells her this everyday. For one week she lives like this and loses ten pounds. Finally she realizes that her escapist nature is slowly killing her. So she goes out for a walk.  
"I'm so sorry about your father," Says Mr. Trivati at the market where she stops to pick up something edible, "And your mother. She was a sweet woman."  
"Thank you," She replies and gives the old man 10.50 for the pound of tomatoes, loaf of bread and jug of milk that she picked up. She needs to start eating again.  
She meets with the people from the funeral home and decides the date for her mother's burial. She fills out all the details, signs the checks and smiles with closed lips. Her mother always loved cherry wood, now she will be entombed in it. She sets the visitation times and her Aunt Caroline comes down from Canada for her sister's funeral.  
Aunt Caroline drives herself to her niece's apartment, as not to burden her. She climbs the flight of stairs and lets herself in. Adie is airing out the place. She's opened all the windows and the doors to the small balcony facing the west. She cleans like a mad woman. Caroline sees her and begins to hurt again.  
"Hey Adie baby," She says, surprising the girl.  
Adie looks over with her muddy blue eyes and cracks a smile, walking up slowly and embracing her only relative.  
"How have you been babe?" Caroline asks, backing up and brushing the strands of loose brown hair from her sister's daughter's face.  
"Not good," Adie says, a nervous chuckle escaping her lips.  
Her face looks pale and hollow. Her chuckle becomes shaky and evolves slowly into a sob that racks her whole body, the reality of the situation hitting her so hard. Caroline cries as well and they sit on the mopped, swept floors, just letting the last week drain from them like a faucet.  
And she wonders how it's come to this.  
Adie has hauled out every single photo album she could find and set them on the table. She and Caroline pour over the pictures, drinking glass after glass of milk.  
"You never took after just one of your parents in looks," Caroline says, swirling the remaining white liquid in her glass cup around, "You always were an even mix of both."  
She points to a picture of Otto and Rosie on their honeymoon. They are both smiling; they're faces squinting in the light of the Italian sun. Adie was blessed with the mouth of a scientist and the eyes of a poet, that's obvious from this picture. She smiles for the first time in a week, a real smile that shows her teeth. A tear drops and slides into the corner of her mouth.  
And this is how she begins to heal.  
Her father used to say she was a joyful girl, and she is, at her very core. She's a happy girl and bliss dribbles from her face like laughter. Her mother said she has a glow bug, in her belly, that lights up a room. And she would find her joy again.  
"It's a process," Says Aunt Caroline, and it is. 


	3. Comfortably Numb

It doesn't even feel like she's gone.

It's an absence filled with air, not empty but not full.

Adie wears black well, according to Aunt Caroline who stands with her niece at the visitation. For three hours she smiles, automatic with her "Thank yous" and her handshakes.

Her mother would have been glad. The charities they chose to give to were the Children's Hospital that Rosie had aided in the last months of her life and the half way house where she quietly and self sacrificially helped those who could not help themselves. Adie had never realized what a beautiful person her mother was until the funeral. People she didn't even know sobbed and mourned for her mother. They tell Adie what a difference Rosie had made in their lives. Its all Adie can do to keep her face plastered. Adie wears a mask like her mother's corpse, dressed in her rose dress with the pearl buttons in her casket.

They say the dead look asleep, but they really don't.

They look like mannequins, former shells of what they used to be; hollowed mines, abandoned houses.

Adie thinks this in the graveyard, the past few days a blur of black cloth and white roses. The musky red cover of the coffin gently closes over her mother. The Priest says a few words that bleed and blend into the wind, sun and birds weaving a morbid song. A picture is being painted on her memory.

Adie needs to keep her sanity, so she takes the picture of her father and files it under 'dead' in her mind. After that horrible night he hasn't been seen. She can't think of her daddy, who used to swing her high over his head and read silly children's books over and over to her running around a half human, half insane monster. So she buries him with her mother and pretends it never happened.

That is how she gets by.

It was at the funeral that Harry first saw her, and didn't think anything of it.

It was at the funeral that Adie first saw him and didn't even acknowledge him.

Nobody thinks a whole lot at funerals anyway.

* * *

**A/N**: _I cannot tell you how much writing this story is like therapy for me. This past chapter is written from personal experience. I've lost my uncle, my grandfather, and my cousen all in the past six months and I haven't talked about it till now. It just feels so good to get it out I guess. I promise the next chapters will become less morbid! I know the first three were real downers but fear not, Adie is a joyful girl remember? (-; thanks for reading, i shall not dissapoint!_


	4. Puddle Skipping

She laughs and picks up the watering can. Her flowers are looking much more alive, hanging outside her window over her balcony. Caroline is happy to see her niece laughing again. It was frightening to see her so desolate.  
"So when are you going back to school, Adie? Your professors must be wondering where you went."  
"Oh I informed them of all that was going on, they understand." They probably would have known with or without me telling them, she thinks to herself, "I go back next week."  
"Good. You have to start living again, Adie baby, you can't keep yourself holed up like this for weeks."  
"I know, I know..." She comes in and sits down beside her aunt, who is reading the newspaper and having coffee.  
Adie never liked coffee all that much, so she gets up to make herself some tea. She's eating now, and sleeping as well. She gets up in the morning, takes her shower, gets dressed and cleans. It's not much, but its an improvement.  
"You know, Adie, I have a few books that need to be returned to the library," Caroline says glancing up slightly from her paper.  
Adie looks over at the digital stove clock and the kettle begins to sing on the far right eye. She discards her apron, walks up to the stove and turns it off.  
"I'll be back soon than," She picks up the three novels lying on the counter beside the potted geranium and bonsai tree that stand watch over her car keys and discarded junk mail. She leaves the car keys. She'll walk to the library. She needs the exercise anyway.  
  
Last night's storm has left it's remnants in the streets. Adie jumps large puddles and pretends they're oceans. The pavement is slippery with sunlight and the shops are opening their grated cages, yielding their wares like fruit. She decides it's a good day, right before the Rolls Royce rounds the bend, sending a spray of muddy rainwater in Adie's direction, drenching her. And suddenly, things begin to look a bit bleaker. She is almost certain she knows the face she catches in the back seat window before the car drives away. He seems almost as surprised as her. Though sunglasses hide his eyes, his mouth seems to show this, his grip on his cell phone weakening. But of course, he doesn't have the decency to stop.

* * *

In reality, the young man in the back of the car felt quite terrible. If it had been anyone else who was standing on the street corner soaked, he probably either wouldn't have noticed or would not have thought twice about it. But, unlike Adie who could not place him, he recognized her almost instantly. Perhaps it was because he had worked with her intense, scientist father, or maybe it was just by chance, but somehow the memory of the funeral came back just as she was being splashed with water. However, things did not quite click in his mind till they were about a block from where the incident had taken place.  
"Grady!" He calls to his chauffer, "Grady! Why didn't we stop for that girl?"  
"You didn't say so sir,"  
"Say so? She was drenched, turn around and try to find her!"  
"You'll be late sir,"  
"Grady, just do it,"  
"Yes sir."  
They take a short cut down past the library trying to find her, however, he sees her just as she is about to walk into that marble monster of a building.  
"Stop Grady!"  
He doesn't know why he's doing this. What is he going to say anyway? Sorry? He guesses that it's just the empathetic side of him finally breaking through or maybe just pity for the poor girl. He has no idea what he's doing but before he can stop himself, he jumps from the car and follows her, calling.  
"Miss!"

* * *

By the time she arrives at the library she is shaking she is so angry. How rude can people get these days? She stomps up the steps, her shoes making that funny damp noise they do when they are completely soaked. If it was any other day she would have laughed, but not today.  
"Miss!"  
She is too livid to hear anything by this point. If she ever saw that guy again, whoever it was, she would give him a piece of her mind and then some.  
"Miss!"  
Finally, somehow the word breaks through and she turns to see a man with a black suit and sunglasses. He takes off the glasses as he approaches. She feels the anger surge within her as he walks up. So she slaps him. By this point she's not even thinking, shes just pissed.  
She stumbles back as if it's her that's been stuck and puts a shocked hand to her mouth.  
He massages his stinging jaw for a moment.  
"I guess I sort of deserved that one," He says.  
"Oh god, I am so sorry," She says regaining control over her temper, "Is anything hurt?"  
At that he chuckles, "Only my pride," He laughs now.  
Her face loses its deer in headlights look and she laughs with him. The first true, belly laugh she has had in a week and a half. They're both laughing so hard now that they are crying.  
"I'm sorry," She repeats wiping her damp cheeks, oblivious to the stares they are receiving on the steps of the library.  
"That was supposed to be my line," He says with a grin.  
He feels so odd, this is the first time he has truly smiled and laughed while sober since his dad died. Murdered. He corrects himself in his mind. My father was murdered. He stops laughing.  
Adie can't help but feel curious.  
"Do I know you?" She asks.  
"Harry Osborne, I worked with your father."  
Suddenly things connect in her mind and she nodds biting her lip.  
"Well it was very nice of you to come back to apologize," She states with a smile, "And again, I truly am sorry."  
"No trouble at all," He says as she begins to back up toward the library, assuming the conversation to be at an end.  
"Thank you again," She says as he begins to back up toward the car, assuming the same thing.  
She turns her back and starts into the building but feels somewhat reluctant.  
Unbeknownest to her, Harry is musing the same thing. He really wasn't thinking that day, he decides as he calls after her once again.  
"Hey!" He realizes he has forgotten her name.  
She turns and smiles, and guesses his thoughts, "Adie, Adie Octavius."  
"Well, Adie Octavius, since its a bit early for drinks, would you like to go get a cup of coffee somewhere?"  
She hates coffee.  
"Why not," She replies and decides she'll give it another chance. 


End file.
